Don't waste your time and money in court, Okowa defeated you squarely, APC group tells Ogboru

The Coalition of Delta All Progressives Congress, APC Support Groups, has told the governorship candidate of the party in the State, Chief Great Ogboru not to go to tribunal to challenge the victory of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, insisting that Dr Ifeanyi Okowa won him squarely and fairly.

Saying it would amount to waste time and resources, the group said Deltans reflected who should be their governor through the ballot last Saturday. The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Monday declared the incumbent Governor and candidate of the PDP, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa as winner of the election after he polled a total 925,274 votes to beat Chief Great Ogboru who scored 215,938 votes.

Addressing newsmen in Asaba, convener of the coalition, Mr Daniel Ekiugbo said “INEC’s declaration was a true reflection of the wishes of the people of the state and I want appeal to APC leadership not to support Ogboru in his decision to go to court.

“It is obvious that challenging the outcome will be a wild goose chase. The margin is too wide for any sane person to think of challenging it. Ogboru had been challenging electoral victories in the past on allegations of being rigged out.

“So this time around, the national leadership of APC now provided the level playing field so that he will not be rigged out this, but he was overwhelmed, winning in just two out of 25 local government areas”.

Saying that the APC lost the governorship election partly as a result of alleged diversion of over N3 billion that was released for the purpose of the election, he said there was no evidence that such money ever disbursed.

Ekiugbo said Ogboru as governorship candidate was a misadventure, adding that “his ambition was selfishly driven to rake-in election funds without any strategy put in place to guarantee victory,” adding that “a budget of N3 billion was too much to prosecute the governorship election.

“There was no evidence anywhere that he spent N1 billion for the elections. He refused to properly disburse and chose to release paltry amounts only to his few chosen supporters.

“Even for Local Government Area rallies, he never released one kobo, instead he directed that local leaders and supporters to task themselves to fund such rallies. And because most leaders could not raise such funds, a lot of LGA rallies were either abandoned or turned out to be huge flops.

“We reiterate our demand that the National Working Committee, NWC of our great party to set up a panel of enquiry to immediately review the outcome of the Delta APC overall performance in the just concluded elections.”

Chief Great Ogboru could not be reached for comment on the allegation of diversion of over N3 billion campaign funds. However, the party chairman in the state, Jones Erue said he was not aware of how much came in during the elections.